Page 82 of The Trick of the Treasure
Audrey Lloyd stood there in her untidy, ill-matched garb of dull colors, except for a brave, bright red and blue shawl worn over her coat. Behind her spectacles, she blinked rapidly at the delegation before her.
Tybalt jerked around to face her. “You had better go back inside,” he barked.
She sighed. “We had betterallgo inside. I am prepared to postpone my walk.”
As she turned away, Tybalt glared at Solomon and then Constance. “I won’t have her upset,” he growled. “Understand?”
“Perfectly,” Constance said, sailing past him into the house.
Audrey led them to a small parlor at the back of the house. “Everyone else is having tea in the dining room, so this room is usually quiet at this time of day…”
The furniture consisted of a small sofa, several comfortable old armchairs, a low table, and a bookcase containing a variety of literature, from worthy tomes to cheaply bound novels and magazines.
Audrey sat on the sofa. If she expected Captain Tybalt to join her there, she was disappointed, for Constance, quite deliberately, took the place instead. Despite the woman’s calmness, she was tense, her eyes shadowed from more than one sleepless night.
She was worried, as she had not been by the loss of her brother’s treasure. Had she found out what a dangerous man she was tying herself to?
“Why are you here?” Audrey asked bluntly, as Solomon closed the door and leaned negligently against it.
“Icame to escort you on your walk,” Tybalt said.
“And you, Mrs. Silver? Mr. Grey? Did Barnabas send you?”
“He asked us to find you,” Solomon said, and she glanced up at him quickly.
“Does he know I’m here?”
“Not yet,” Constance said. “We need to know why you left first.”
Audrey blinked and smiled. “I am of age, dear,” she said wryly.
“Then no one drove you out or compelled you to come here?” Constance asked.
“Oh, dear me, no.”
Quite suddenly, gazing at her, Constance thought it would not be quite so easy to compel Audrey Lloyd as she had imagined. There was a firmness about the set of her mouth, a stubbornness that was not obvious on first acquaintance.
“The thing is,” Solomon said gently, “it is likely the police will be looking for you now.”
“The police?” she said, startled. “Why, what do they think I have done?”
“Your visits to Mr. Clarke’s sister must have been noted by someone,” Constance pointed out. “Particularly since he didn’t have one. It gives you a questionable connection to the murdered man.”
A frown formed between her brows. “What murdered man?” she asked in what appeared to be genuine bafflement.
Solomon straightened, watching Tybalt as Constance observed Audrey. “There have been some developments in the case since you left home, ma’am. Did Captain Tybalt not tell you that Mr. Clarke was murdered?”
The lady’s lips parted. She stared at him, then suddenly jumped to her feet, wringing her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Don’t lie to me! Don’t say such things! Oh God,pleasebe lying to me!”
Even as Constance rose and caught the older woman’s hand in instinctive desire to comfort, she began to think they had got everything horribly wrong.
“Whoisthis Clarke?” Tybalt demanded. He too had risen, and his frustration looked as genuine as his concern for Audrey.
“Samuels,” Solomon said. “Your ship’s carpenter. The one who made the duplicate chest that enabled you to steal Mr. Lloyd’s treasure.”
“What? I didn’t take his damned… Audrey—Miss Lloyd, please don’t distress yourself. Please sit down.”
But Audrey seemed incapable of it. She was grasping Constance’s hand so hard that it hurt, her eyes so full of anguish that it was impossible to doubt her.
